Adam Haydock and Jason Lavender climbing out of the refresher 1500ft. down in the La Grieta conduit of Sistema Huautla, Mexico PHOTO BY: Chris Higgins

Sistema Huautla is one of the worlds most sought after cave systems, holding strong as the 8th deepest cave system in the world. This system is at the forefront of cave exploration with some of the worlds best cave explorers and scientists seeking to push deeper into the cave with no end in site. Diving and dome climbing have all rendered more going passage and continue to make this system one of the most interesting and beautiful caves to visit in the world.  

The 46.9 miles of surveyed passage that Sistema Huautla has given up to the dedicated explorers who venture into the depths is currently the deepest cave in the Western Hemisphere weighing in at around 5169ft. of total vertical extent! Sistema Huautla also has a network of over 20 connected entrances with more added every year as ridge walks and proximity caves are located and connected with survey technology.

 

For decades now, top tier exploration organizations have been pushing and mapping this remote limestone system that is nestled in the mountains of Mexico in the state of Oaxaca and in the towns of Huautla, San Andres, and Plan Carlota surrounded by the Sierra Mazateca.

Mazateca. Huautla, Mexico

 The indigenous Mazatec people have lived here for thousands of years and find the mountains and culture they are accustomed to be an ideal place to live, and after visiting the Sierra, I have to agree.  The flora and the 6500ft. of elevation was a beautiful setting of beauty and serenity as cloud inversions cover thick forest and jungle overgrowth giving the mountain terrain lots of life and vitality within the steep and confined mountain ranges of the Sierra Mazateca.   

Once we left the basecamp we crossed through a schoolyard and headed down a dirt trail which meandered around a few mountain corners and passed a few houses which had a few pairs of eyes staring out the windows with a mysterious optimism sparkling in their eyes as to what we were doing.

Adam Haydock and Jason Lavender in a new 200ft pit near Sistema Huautla, Mexico PHOTO BY: Chris Higgins

 Our trek continued into the jungle trail which took us uphill and over to a vista overlook that gave us a great view of the Mazatec Sierra mountains and a opportunity to explore a new cave.

 

We broke into the forest and down into a sink where there was a entrance to a cave that was scoped out the day before. This time a bolt kit and 300ft of rope were brought on this march to the cave.

 

We could feel air blowing out and sucking in which gave us the impression that this cave might have some significant passage or a possible thru trip.  We could also hear noises inside the cave but we were not sure if that noise was reflective from the surface.

 Chris threw a rock down the cave and we could hear it bouncing off the walls for sometime until it made a crash landing at the bottom. The first drop was bolted which was the first of three rebelays Chris set up.

 

Chris descended down and set up the remaining two rebelays that took us to the bottom of the cave. We ended up surveying the system which we found it to be right at 60meters (200ft) and ended at the bottom with no going passage

 

We are not sure where the air was coming from but we did find a guapa whip scorpion at the bottom.

 

We took some photos and de rigged the pit to seek out another 50ft. drop just down the trail. This entrance was a bit more open air with vines growing in the entrance and was just outside of a garden that a local farmer had.

 

We quickly bounced this drop and headed back to camp to relax a bit and prepare for a photo trip into the la Grieta entrance of Sistema Huautla.

 

 

  Some were a bit more tired than others with what objectives they have been working on but everyone was really welcoming which was comforting after two days of travel through central Mexico.  After an hour to get settled in and meeting some of the other members of the expedition, we secured a car ride up to La Grieta.

 

 We got a ride up to the la Grieta entrance to Sistema Huautla which was only around a couple hundred feet from the gravel road from where we got dropped off which was really nice.

Adam Haydock dropping into La Grieta. Sistema Huautla, Mexico PHOTO BY: Chris Higgins

 Our objective was to photo document the first 10-15 drops in the cave and continue with the photo documentation of the remaining sections of the cave at another time during the week.

 

 Just about every drop was rigged with 9mm PMI rope and rebelays which included standard loop rebelays ( some with tighter loops than others) to Y hang rebelays, and a few traverse lines to cross exposed areas.

 

We dropped down the first pit which was around 150ft. with three rebelay points and there was a dead turkey at the bottom of this pit.  Chris mentioned that the turkey was sacrificed to bless the expedition with good luck and good spirits but the blessings were a bit of a stinker, especially climbing back out at the end of our trips.

 

Other bones were found on the entrance drops which might have been recent animals that might have either been Sacrificed or fell into the cave  

We stopped a different intervals until we got down 10-15 raps and took some photos of what we did which turned out to be a lot of fun.

The drops were between 20ft. and 40ft. so they were not that deep and the temp inside the cave was around 65 degrees which was a nice temp.  The passages were not that big and there were not many formations but we got to photo some of the drops and a few wolf spiders along the way.

 

 Afterwards, we left Chris's camera bag in the cave and headed out to come back for it a few days later when we planned to go deeper into La Grieta.

 

 We walked back to basecamp and had some dinner while talking with Matt, Bill, and Jim about the leads that were being worked on and what we can help accomplish in the few days that I was going to be there. We all discussed that we would go to a high lead in the mountains to see where the cave would trend.

 

 Matt, Chris, and Jason went to the high lead the previous day to see if the lead would go and left an air blowing passage with signs of foot prints, so we decided we would check out this cave and complete the connection.

Adam Haydock dropping into one of the classic drops in La Grieta. Sistema Huautla, Mexico PHOTO BY: Chris Higgins

The following day we headed out early with Tommy, Bill, Frank and our group of whom included, Chris, Jason, and myself. One party went to Wind cave to push some leads that might connect to Sistema Huautla and our group headed over to our high lead with a bolt kit to see if we could connect right into Sistema Huautla.

 

 Our lead was right near Huautla so if the passage kept going, we would have made a significant contribution to the expedition!!! We hiked along the ridge which had farm fields and other caves including a system that was over 800ft deep in vertical extent!

 

Unfortunately we were not able to get access to that cave to take photos but this lead we were pushing was really important, so we rigged high to this entrance pit which was a sloping 65-70 degree angle to a 30ft. drop that had a bunch of tin roofing parts at the bottom, giving this place its name, "Tin Roof Pit".

 

We passed a Rebelay and made it to the bottom. There were other side leads to check out but we ended up going through the main route which was a karst window to a 30ft drop with some formations at the bottom.

 

Than the popcorn water slot started. This was rather annoying as we had to push our way through lots of grabby popcorn for a couple hundred feet in a slot canyon made for a hobbit to walk through.

 

It wasn't too bad but rather more of a nuisance than anything. Eventually we made it to the TAG team room where the group previously turned around.

 

 I added a "u" for Utah so now it reads "TAG team U" since I showed up!! Woohoo.

 

Chris set up some bolts and we dropped a 30 ft drop which was tiered to another 20ft drop with passage that kept getting bigger.

 

 

The strata in the rock started to change with some dark blues and reds to go along with the color themed limestone cream colors. The passage continued down and we came up to a drop that was around 150ft!!!

 

 The water was trickling over and the rooms below looked pretty large with continuing slot canyon passage and more cave.

 

 I looked back and discovered two rusty steel bolts in the ground and a survey marker that read "18". This cave must have been surveyed at one point but we did not see any bolts or evidence of any rigging anywhere else other than some foot prints back a ways where the tag room was.

 

This was mysterious to us as to how the bolts and survey marker got to where it is in the cave.  Maybe someone rapped down from a slot in the ceiling or climbed the 100ft pit?

 

We ended up surveying the cave, we took photos of the system a bit and started to head back to the entrance to check out some side leads that turned out to be nothing more than dome rooms.

 

Back at basecamp, we plotted all of the data and found out that the cave has indeed been surveyed back in 1981 and was called "sinkhole cave".noooo!!!

 

 We were hoping to have contributed more cave passage and to have been able to connect a high entrance to Sistema Huautla but it has already been done and is a known system which has been reconfirmed.  We were a bit confused as to why this did not come up previously when the cave was checked but now we can say without a doubt that it connects and it is complete.

 

We did, however, add an additional 6 meters of vertical extent to the high side of Sistema Huautla so that was a nice accomplishment that we found to be significant.

 

We got to sleep in a heavy wind storm which I ended up rolling up my tent and throwing it in the shelter where everyone else was sleeping. My tent was bending sideways and slapping my face while I was sleeping so that was not going to work! I brought my sleeping pad out and layed it on the floor next to Chris to got a few hours of sleep.

PESH basecamp, Plan Carlota, Mexico

 A half hour later we could hear a bunch of cheering and shouting in the kitchen so we came down to see what the fuss was all about and it was the push team coming out of the cave after 9 days being underground!  To my surprise they looked quite energetic and in good spirits which was a delight. We sat around the table for a bit to hear about their discovery and survey  which appeared to have rendered over 2 km of new passage that kept going up! After multiple bolt climbs and an attempt at a dive that was called off due to lack of equipment, the team was able to extend Sistema Huautla!!! Congrats to the push team! I headed back up to get some sleep but a few blinks of the eye later, it was 7 am.  We planned to go deep into La Grieta with the hope of getting down to the refresher and beyond and today is the day.

 

 Chris and Jason were battled a bit more than I was so we took it slow and steady down to a depth that would take us deeper than any cave could take us in the United States. We made our way to the entrance and swiftly past the drops that we took photos at before and worked our way to where Chris left his bag. Everything was still there.   Now before we left for deeper depths and the green pastures of La Grieta, I asked the push team if there was anything we should take out of the cave. I was told we should leave everything in the cave and not to worry about it, but later I found out that a team went in there and hauled everything out, wwwwhhoooaa!!. We continued down a few more drops until we got to a series of 8 to 10 rebelays that dropped about 20ft. on a 45 to a 65 degree angle. They all had standing ledges on them but we started to notice how the passage was staring to get larger and more interesting. We got to the bottom of this drop and I could smell a rotting fruit smell which I thought was hootch at first until we got closer and could see the mold growing on the fruit in the corner. Next we came up to the 200.

Jason Lavender at the top of the 200 in La Grieta, Sistema Huautla, Mexico PHOTO BY: Chris Higgins

This is where the cave really started to change. This is a drop that went down about 50 ft. to a free hanging rebelay that dropped 75 feet down to a series of rebelay stations for the remainder of the overall pitch.

Adam Haydock in La Grieta, Sistema Huautla, Mexico PHOTO BY: Chris Higgins

 We got some photos here and continued down to the bottom of the drop.  I wish we got shots of the tiered rebelay stations so next time I am going to get that accomplished. Once we were at the bottom, we encountered a climb up and another drop which took us to a horizontal passage with blowing air! This is where things started to get interesting.

Adam Haydock traversing a passage in La Grieta Sistema Huautla, Mexico PHOTO BY: Chris Higgins

The team continued down this passage of mostly walking body length trunk passage until we started to hit some water. The passage felt a few degrees cooler than where we were but I am assuming that is because the air was blowing in this canyon passage pretty good and the water we had to get into got a bit deep at times, cooling us off a bit.  



Jason Lavender in La Grieta. Sistema Huautla, Mexico PHOTO BY: Chris Higgins

 The strata started to change from a traditional cream colored brown tinted limestone to more of a dark blue gray marbled limestone!

Adam Haydock and Jason Lavender in La Grieta, Sistema Huautla, Mexico PHOTO BY: Chris Higgins

 It was really interesting to see as the rock was polished from drainage and sculpted with fangs of obelisk stone standing tall in the middle of passages for us to climb over and around. 

 

The canyon walls were heavily fluted with geometrical precision at times for the water to make its way down into the depths of Sistema Huautla. The passages reminded me of slot canyons like the ones we have in Utah and at other times, the passage started to remind me of Puerto Rico caving in Los Chorros and Cueva Zumbo.

 

 There were times where we had to cross a traverse line or even rap into potholes and climb out of them which was a freaking blast!!!! I love that kind of caving.

 

 The Refresher was tiered with a few pot holes and a rebelay over the top of the falls that dropped down 30ft. to the bottom.  This was our turning point in the cave.

Jason Lavender pushing through La Grieta, Sistema Huautla, Mexico PHOTO BY: Chris Higgins



Adam Haydock coming out of a rebelayed window in La Grieta Sistema Huautla, Mexico PHOTO BY: Chris Higgins

We made sure to snap a few shots at the restrictions, through some of the marbled sculpted slot canyon passage, and at a few of the drops.

I want to thank Bill Steele for allowing me the opportunity to join the PESH expedition this year and want to recognize the efforts that everyone put into the expeditions objective and side trips that rendered the following results;

-Bill Steele

Adam Haydock traversing a passage in La Grieta, Sistema Huautla, Mexico PHOTO BY: Chris Higgins

It was an absolute pleasure to meet all of the participants and create new friendships with some of the best cavers on the planet. The Operation was successful and I am looking forward to coming back next year to continue the push and to be apart of the dive operations.  I also want to thank the cooks for making us our meals (sometimes upon request) and having warm good food ready when we and the other participants came back from the caves. 

The Witch Doctor PESH 2016 Mexico PHOTO BY: Chris Higgins

That was a real morale booster and good for our energy levels.  I really appreciate all of that effort you guys put in!!!  I know Bill was top side for most of the expedition working with the community, giving presentations and building relationships so I want to give recognition to Bill for his community outreach in making PESH successful for the years to come. Everyone was a world class contributor and caver and I hope this can continue for decades as I know there is plenty of "Booty",as what Jim Smith calls it, to explore.

 

 

PESH WEBSITE: http://www.peshcaving.org/

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week 4 PESH Huautla, Mexico